Rashid Rauf, the suspected ringleader for the 2006 plot to blow up transatlantic airliners, has been killed by a U.S. drone in Waziristan, Pakistan.

The news comes as a surprise. What is not surprising is that the 27-year-old British terrorist of Pakistani descent was hiding in the tribal areas of northwestern Pakistan. Or that he was killed by a Predator drone carrying hellfire missiles launched from a U.S. base in Afghanistan and guided by technicians in Nevada. (There have been 24 such drone attacks aimed at terrorists in the region since August 31.)

What’s surprising is that it was the Americans who got him.

Before his death last week, Rashid Rauf was considered one of England’s most wanted terrorists. The plot he helped mastermind — under the direction of al-Qaeda — aimed to blow up multiple U.S.-bound aircraft with liquid explosives after the planes left London.

Since then, Rauf has been aggressively sought by Scotland Yard, first through extradition proceedings and later through British intelligence after he “escaped” from Pakistani custody last December. But U.S. intelligence remained relatively quiet about him. Rashid Rauf never appeared on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists.

His death raises questions about information sharing and military alliances in the war on terror. Although Rauf is a British citizen, it appears England was not included, or even aware, of the American operation to kill him.

“A secret meeting on board an American aircraft carrier between the U.S. General David Petraeus and the head of the Pakistani military laid the foundation for the killing of Britain’s most wanted terrorist,” reports the Independent. The Guardian says, “Whitehall [was] kept in dark over strike.” And the Times Online reports that “MPs seek answers as CIA kills British terror suspect Rashid Rauf.”

With the international news of Rashid Rauf’s death comes another question: just how big of a player was Rauf after all? American officials have yet to officially comment, but the Telegraph reports they’ve been told by anonymous U.S. sources that Rauf was linked to al-Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Rauf is also linked by marriage to Jaish-e-Mohammad, or The Army of Mohammed. Its leader, Maulana Masood Azhar (Rauf’s brother-in-law), orchestrates terror attacks in Indian Kashmir. When Azhar was sprung from an Indian prison in 2000, alongside Daniel Pearl’s future killer Omar Sheik, Osama Bin Laden threw him a party.

It is this growing and dangerous alliance that Bruce Riedel, a counterterrorism adviser to President-elect Barack Obama points out. “Rauf epitomizes the Pakistan-UK connection that Al-Qaeda is trying to exploit to attack Britain and the United States,” Riedel said. “He also has ties to Kashmiri terror groups closely aligned with al-Qaeda.”

In the tangled web of terrorist alliances and allegiances, one thing becomes clear: for the United States, certain terrorists are wanted dead — not alive.

Who the U.S. shares its information with apparently comes second to that end.

Annie Jacobsen writes the "Backstory" blog (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/back-story/)
for the Los Angeles Times Magazine.

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1.
Tom

Apparently the rest of the world has caught on to the idea that the jihadis are nothing but trouble. I don’t think many of these folks will be missed.

Why wasn’t this man arrested and given a fair trial before a jury of his peers? I just don’t understand how we trash the Constitution, which, as Pres. Obama says, has serious flaws, but still is the law of the land.

Dr. Lumplevin:
You are funny. Get off your high horse. Who is to arrest the man? Under what laws and power can we arrest him? Where to try him? Who is his peers, other jihadists? Which Constitution was trashed? “the law of the Land” which land? The tribal land where he was located? Rauf was not an American inside the US. Our Constitution does not apply outside the US, our law does not stretch into Pakistan. For goodness sake, neither does the Pakistani Law stretch into the area where Rauf met his Hellfire.

In the near future Rauf would have been arrested, brought back to the states and stood trial. With that being said, his attorneys and his terrorist buddies would have access to all intel and techniques to gather said intel in full disclosure. This will be far worse than the NYT exposing classified techniques in our war on terror.

I see nothing there about MI6 not being aware of the strike, only that the MP’s didn’t know. So what, our Congress isn’t filled on who we are targeting either. Weather they knew or not, I’d be willing to bet the Brits would green light the op with their blessings and warmest wishes. Why waste tax payer money with a trial. Besides, he “escaped” from the Pakistani’s before and it’s not like the guy would be arrested and then extradited to the UK anyway. We need to keep taking these animals out since the PC crowd appears to have won their bid at a National suicide by closing Gitmo in the name of “Human Rights”. Forget snatch and grab missions, from here on out they should all be targeted assassinations.

on behalf of the U.S I would like to extend a hardy, Your Welome! to our friends on the otherside of the pond. just let us know if there is anyone else you need rubbed out and America would be happy to to take both the heat and the glory for cleaning up scum wherever it hides.

i agree with lumplevin’s concerns. i look forward to the day (maybe jan 21?) when every hellfire has three lawyers on board to ensure that everyone’s rights are fully respected until the point of impact.

Rauf wasn’t on the FBI’s “most wanted” list because he wasn’t a law-enforcement problem. He was a military problem – which was solved in a military manner. And, am I to understand that the British government now wants the US to notify them any time someone is to be killed on a battlefield – simply because the clown is British? What a laugh! The MPs worrying about this should get a better grip on reality. Perhaps a review of what has been done to England by the islamofascists; and what they are planning to do, would be in order.
And, you’re quite welcome for us solving another one of your problems.

Good one dgf. I agree, have the lawyers read them their rights just before impact. The bad part is we would probably run out of lawyers to second guess every action the U.S. took to rid the world of these scum! Remember, this is a fight to the death, and they are willing, able and ready to meet Allah and their 72 burqa clad virgins as soon as they can. Allah Akbar!

Lets see, one bullet to kill Hitler or 20 million dead. One bullet to kill Stalin or 30 million dead. One bullet to kill Mao or 70 million dead. I could go on for about two pages. But some lefty whiner would stroke out. Good work whoever was flying that thing. Glad to see the Pakistanis have finaly woken up……….

The MPs asking questions in the House may not have known – at least not officially. But MI6 knew, for sure. Obviously they’re not going to admit they knew, since the “execution” was irregular, but nobody’s shedding a tear on either side of the Atlantic.

If there’s one thing that has become apparent in the past few years of counter-Jihadi operations it is that when our forces are given their head they are capable of inflicting savage casualties on the enemy. So far the number of Mohammedan fanatics dead at the hands of our servicemen must be in the mid five figures or higher. Obviously where the intelligence services disrupt domestic terror networks, the perpetrators must be dealt with using the criminal justice system. But when it comes to known terrorist operatives hiding in a country which is an ‘ally’ in only the most etiolated sense of the word, bleating about the rule of law is vacuous. Let the Army and Marines (and Air Force) convert as many Moslem terrorists into offal as is humanly possible.

The death of a piece of nihilist scum like Rauf should be a cause for celebration, not the wringing of hands.

How the hell is a drone supposed to arrest him? If our allies enemies have the bad fortune of meeting our firepower, how is this a bad thing? I would ask them to pay for the firepower that killed them, but only because I’m a smug American.

This is the kind of good news you can’t tell everyone; there would be too many people belly aching about us not having the Pakistani police apprehend him or they’d cry about us killing him in Pakistan.

There probably was some communication about this between US and UK intelligence services but they are hardly going to broadcast that fact to parliament or congress. Even if there wasn’t, I’m sure MI6 are quite pleased with the outcome anyway. Obviously this type of ‘justice’ isn’t ideal but he had the option to give himself up for trial in the UK and turned it down so hey ho.

Paki intelligence = Arm of the Taliban and helped the guy escape before.

My bet is that the Brits pinpointed him and that they had to get the Americans to do the deed because if it went up their administrative ladder they would be reading about it on the front page of the Guardian.

The premise of this article seems to be that the US knew exactly who was in the house before it was attacked and that US intelligence deliberately decided to keep this information from the British government.

Here’s another scenario. Informants in Afghanistan convey the information that “some al Qaeda guy” is staying there. Surveillance indicates that he is meeting with other al Qaeda people and seems to be some sort of leader. One or more Hellfire missiles are fired into his dwelling. In the aftermath, a follow up team goes through the wreckage looking for documents, computers, cell phones and mops up some of the jihadi juice splashed all over the rubble for DNA testing.

After going through the evidence, somebody in a lab in northern Virginia says, “Guess who we just killed.”

Wait, it’s not over yet. The Associated Press will write a story that the hellfire missle attacked a peaceful Muslim wedding party and devote the first 20 paragraphs describing how the evil U.S. killed numerous women and children and the last paragraph will mention,as an aside, that a terrorist was also killed. I love all these “Muslim weddings”, I guess that the invitations make AK 47′s optional and that peaceful attendees were celebrating firing them into the air just as an Amerrican drone was passing overhead, purely a co-incidence I’m sure.

British MPs raising questions in the Houses of Parliament is pretty meaningless. First of all Parliament in the UK is emasculated by Europe, secondly no one in their right mind would worry about what MPs need to know and thirdly, any “questions” are probably done for local votes to give the illusion that they care.

But a fair number of NuLab people think – as all good lefties always imagine – that “international law” exists and that being nice to nasty people means they will stop being doing bad things. Long winded trials may appeal as an intellectual idea but the reality of war requires expediency, not lawyers arguing. The scum who died had no plans to be fair to people on airliners they planned to kill.

A bad guy is dead and has gone to collect his virgin-vouchers. I expect British intelligence knew something of it and whatever the bleatings of MPs, the world is now a slightly better place thanks to the US involvement.

Bravo! Yet another hyena falls prey to the LIONS of the West! Thank You to the pilot of that awesome metal eagle. Great shot! Who knows how many future lives you saved by taking out that rat and his crew. You da man!

You have to understand British politics to know how this could happen.

Most of the ruling Labour Party’s MPs would instantly rise to the defense of a British citizen were to receive the death penalty, even if he was a terrorist and a mass murderer, and especially if the US were to be involved in executing him.

Consequently the British Government will have been very careful not to know anything about the planned strike, and the US government was I’m sure happy to oblige. The only thing left for Labour’s MPs to complain about was the US keeping the British in the dark, but that’s a total sham, as 90% of them fully understand.

Welcome to the reality of the ‘global test’, in this case as it works with our closest ally. It goes downhill from there.

The liberal ideal is that Rauf should have been arrested and read his rights in the tribal area of Pakistan. Then, he was to have been shipped to San Francisco and given OJ’s (original) legal defense team to “clear his name.” Once the SF jury found him not guilty, he would plead asylum from nasty Pakistan’s government that – understandably enough – would “persecute” him if it ever got its hands on him.

Being not guilty and given a green card, he would henceforth become a model US citizen and hit the lecture circuit.

As far as I can tell, that is how people like Doc L. think these things thru…

“Or that he was killed by a Predator drone carrying hellfire missiles launched from a U.S. base in Afghanistan and guided by technicians in Nevada.”
=
Do you suppose that it irritates the terrorists when an arm chair, coffee drinking fellow in Nevada can reach across the world and snuff out one or more of their miserable lives? Life is good.